Syria’s Bloody Ramadan Comes to an End

But this is no reason for well-meaning but fundamentally ill-informed commentators to privilege Palestinian rights, while despising the rights of Jewish refugees and their Sephardi and Mizrahi descendants, who make up 50 percent of Israel’s population. There’s a word for that: racism.

• Hamas is on its best behavior, and Ismail Haniyeh’s saying all the things Cairo needs to hear about Sinai security. AFP picked up on Haniyeh’s Eid al-Fitr remarks.

• Toronto Star commentaries respond to the United Church of Canada’s decision to boycott Israeli settlements. Thomas Woodley and Dow Marmur weigh in for and against the boycott, respectively.

“Soon we will no longer have an Egyptian state for all its citizens, but an Islamist state for all its Muslims,” . . .

Rebel in Aleppo

•Media reports say German and British spies are giving Syrian rebels intelligence gleaned from an offshore spy boat, a Cyprus-based listening post, and a NATO base in Turkey.

• A group with suspected links to Al-Qaida is raising its profile in Syria. The Washington Post introduces us to the al-Nusra Front for the Protection of the People of the Levant, (or, Jabhat al-Nusra for short).

Jabhat al-Nusra’s growing visibility on the streets of Syrian cities highlights one of the reasons the United States and its allies have been reluctant to arm Syrian rebels even as Obama administration officials repeatedly insist that Assad must go.

• A Daily Star staff-ed laments Lebanese government paralysis. Politicians from the country’s rival camps are starting to agree that that Lebanon’s starting to spin out of control.

There was an item on the BBC World Service last night re Palestinians in East Jerusalem opting for Israeli nationality. It was, as you would expect from the BBC, and from Jon Donnison, who was formerly the correspondent in Gaza.
Here is the email I sent Jon Donnison:
“I heard your piece on the BBC World Service about Arabs taking Israeli nationality. It was a typical piece of BBC anti-Israel propaganda. No mention of the REAL reason why Arabs in Jerusalem take Israeli nationality, i.e. the unpleasant politicking in i.e. the unpleasant politicking that goes on in the West Bank, disgust with the Palestinian authority etc. And no interview with Israeli officials.